Door structures



P 5, 1966 A. M. JOHNSTON 3,270,477

DOOR STRUCTURES Filed Jan. 11, 1965 FIG.5 FIG.4

United States Patent 3,270,477 DOOR STRUCTURES Alex M. Johnston, Norwalk, Calif. (4802 Pinehurst, Garland, Tex.) Filed Jan. 11, 1965, Ser. No. 424,501 1 Qlairn. (Cl. 52-627) My invention relates to store front doors and is particularly directed to a method of fastening the top and bottom rails to the stiles.

It is an object of my invention to provide a method of transferring the pressure created by the assembly bolts to the outside edges of the stiles, resulting in a greatly stronger joint than is provided by the methods now employed.

It is an object of my invention to provide a method of locating and maintaining location of the rail onto the stile so that the top rail may not move up, and so that the bottom rail may not move down, so as to become misaligned with the ends of the stiles.

It is an object of my invention to provide a method by which a bolt of suflicient length to hold in a screw race in the top and bottom rails may be inserted into the stile without requiring that a hole be created in the outer wall of the stile large enough for the head of the bolt to pass, but that that hole be only large enough for passing through it an Allen or socket head wrench with which to tighten the assembly "bolt.

-It is an object of my invention to provide a method of fastening which will allow preassembly of the components to a further extent than is provided by the methods now employed.

It is an object of my invention to provide a method by which the final assembly of the door around the glass panel may be accomplished with simple hand tools.

Attached to this application is a drawing of my invention, to which reference in the following description will be made.

FIGURE 1 is an elevational view of a store front door.

FIGURE 2, as indicated by dotted line number 2-2 on FIGURE 1, is a cross section of the door stile, showing the stile member, reference number 1, a top view of the bottom rail reference number 2, the assembly bolt, reference number 3, lock washer 4, rectangular plate 5, pressure transfer channel 6, in dotted lines the rail locating protrusions 7 which are a portion of the immediately adjacent wall of the stile section, the exact details of which will become more apparent as they are illustrated in FIG- UR ES 3 and 4, and the rail retaining lips 8 which are a continuous part of the stile member shape.

FIGURE .3, as indicated by dotted line 33 on FIG- URE 1, is a cross section of the bottom rail, showing the rail member, reference number 2, the stile member, reference number 1, the rail locating protrusions 7, the rail retaining lips 8 which are a continuous part of the stile member, the two curved tongues 9 which are a continuous part of the rail member forming a partial cylinder or screw race into which the assembly bolt is threaded, the end of the assembly bolt 3, and the area, 10, indicating a slot in the inner wall of the stile section. pose of this slot is to allow the shank of the assembly bolt to be slid up the stile section after it has been partially threaded into the screw race in the rail section.

FIGURE 4 is an elevational view of the bottom right hand corner of the door showing the stile 1, and the bottom rail 2, the large cut away area is a sectional view The pur- Patented Sept. 6, 1966 cut at the center line of the door as indicated by dotted line 44 on FIGURE 2. The large cut away area shows the assembly bolt 3, passing through the lock washer 4, the rectangular plate 5, the pressure transfer channel 6, the bolt insertion slot 10 in the inner wall of the stile member, and out of the stile member into the screw race 9 of the bottom rail. At the right side of the large cut away is shown the wrench access hole 13, through which an \Allen or socket wrench is inserted for final tightening of the assembly bolt.

The small cut away area within the large cut away area, is a sectional view cut just forward of the rail locating protrusions as indicated by dotted line 5-5 on FIGURE 2. It shows the rail locating protrusion 7, a portion of the horizontal wall, 11, of the bottom rail, under which the protrusion supports the bottom rail, pre venting the bottom rail from sliding down and out of alignment with the bottom end of the stile, and a portion of the immediately adjacent wall, 12, of the stile member, out of which the protrusion is formed.

In your petitioners application of the invention the stile member, rail member, and pressure transferring channel were aluminum extrusions. The rectangular plate was steel, and the assembly bolt and lock washer were steel. The materials used and the methods of forming them into the shapes shown is not pertinent to the invention.

F abrication insofar as the joint is concerned, of the top and bottom rails requires only cutting them to the proper length :and tapping the screw race to receive the assembly bolts. It is conceivable that some type of self threading bolt or screw might be used for the assembly bolt which would render unnecessary the tapping of the screw race beforehand.

Fabrication, insofar as the joint is concerned, of the stiles requires cutting them to length, punching or otherwise forming of the bolt insertion slots in each end, punching or otherwise forming of the rail locating protrusions on each end, and drilling, punching, or otherwise forming of the wrench access holes in each end.

Fabrication of the pressure transfer channels consists only of cutting to the proper length and punching, drilling or otherwise forming of the centrally located hole in each, through which the assembly bolt passes.

Fabrication of the rectangular plates requires cutting to proper size and punching, drilling or otherwise forming of the centrally located hole in each through which the assembly bolt passes.

The assembly bolt and lock washer are standard available items.

At the present time all presently manufactured aluminum store front doors known to your petitioner, are made so that the glass retaining portion of the rails and stiles consists of two removable glass stops, so that the glass or other panel with which the door is glazed may be installed after the door is otherwise assembled. There are several reasons why it is desirable that the door be easily glazed with the use of simple hand tools. One rather complicated reason involves the fact that few if any glass companies use enough of this type door in any one location to warrant their manufacturing the door themselves, therefore the door is manufactured by companies who sell the door to many glass companies. Also involved in this reason is the fact that the fragility of glass, and the expense of packaging individual panels so that they will not be broken in transit, makes it unfeasible for the manufacturer of the door to ship it with the glass already installed. Therefore the practise is for the glass company to purchase his glass in cases which hold many panels, therefore reducing the cost of protective packaging of each panel, and to purchase his store front doors from the maunfacturer unglazed. This requires a door that is easily glazed in his shop or on the job without the need of any special tools. The most apparent reason for a door which is easily glazed with simple hand tools, is obvious when considering the fact that glass often gets broken and must be replaced. It is most desirable to be able to make this replacement on the job, without the use of special tools.

The cost of manufacturing a door with removable glass stops is obviously more than the cost of manufacturing a door with the glass stops an integral part of the rails and stiles. At first glance the fact that the removable stop type door requires twelve pieces of metal to be cut and handled, that is the four rails and stiles, and the two stops on each, as compared to the four pieces, that is the rails and stiles only required for this wrap around type door, makes the latter type door more economical to manufacture.

At the present time most, if not all, aluminum residential sliding doors, sliding windows, sliding tub enclosures, and commercial quality sliding windows are manufactured on the wrap around principal to some extent similar to the construction shown in the accompanying drawings, except that they have not the strength built into the corner joint which is necessary to withstand the stresses to which a store front door is subjected. That degree of strength is not necessary in a sliding panel, as sliding panels are laterally supported on all four corners and not subjected to any twisting action. A store front, swinging type door is only supported on two corners, at the top and bottom, leaving the other two corners free and subjected to twisting pressures from many sources. To mention one most common source of twisting pressure, the pressure applied by a door closing device, whether it be located at the top or the bottom of the door, tending to hold the door closed, is opposite to the pressure applied by a person pushing or pulling on the door in the process of opening it. The pressure of the person pulling or pushing the door open is applied at a point approximately halfway up the stile of the door, and there is therefore two opposing pressures, one at the top or bottom of the door in one direction, and the other at about the midpoint of the door in the other direction, thereby creating a twisting stress on the door. Another example of twisting stress on swinging type doors is present in the case of a pair of these closing against a stop at the top, but against nothing at the bottom. In this case the constant pressure of a closing device which applies pressure against the bottom of the door, tending to hold it closed, creates a constant twisting stress on the door. Also in this type installation, wind pressures may at times create an immense twisting stress on the doors. Another example is the sudden jerking open of these doors by automatic opening devices so commonly used in supermarket grocery establishments. This sudden pressure is applied only to the bottom or top rail of the door, and working against the doors natural tendency to remain in its closed position, there is created a very strong twisting stress on these doors.

On the other hand, in the case of sliding type doors or windows, the top rail and the bottom rail are both held by a channel or groove arrangement of some kind, which holds the panel flat, and therefore not subjected to twisting stresses. Therefore the manufacturers of sliding panels have been able to use the more economical, but up until now less sturdy, wrap around type construction, whereas for lack of a strong enough corner joint on the known wrap around type construction, the store front door manufacturers have been unable to use it. Your petitioner should like to qualify this last statement with the statement that there was, some years ago, a

wrap around type store front door manufactured by Acme Metal Moulding Company of Los Angeles, which company has since been purchased by Northrup Architectural Systems of Los Angeles. This door made use of a much more expensive type corner joint arrangement requiring a cast corner gusset which extended into the stile and the rail, and was fastened to the stile and rail with screws. Such an arrangement is not only more expensive materially and in fabrication, but does not afford nearly as definite. holding pressure tending to hold the joint together as the device shown in this application, but also provides a construction which makes the task of cutting the width of the door down by a field mechanic greatly more difiicult than the device shown in this application. The door was discontinued some years ago, probably for the reasons stated above.

To simply describe the corner joint presently used on the wrap around construction of the present sliding doors and windows, it is in principle the same as it shown by my drawings except for five distinctions.

First it has no pressure transfer channel, reference number 6, FIGURES 2 and 4.

Second it has no rectangular plate, reference number 5, FIGURES 2 and 4.

Third it has no rail location protrusions, reference number 7, FIGURES 2, 3 and 4.

Fourth it has instead of the bolt insertion slot, reference number 10, FIGURES 3 and 4, a bolt insertion hole, located where the upper end of the bolt insertion slot is shown in FIGURES 3 and 4.

Fifth in the same location as the wrench access hole, reference number 13, FIGURE 4, it has a much larger hole, large enough to allow insertion of the whole bolt, head and all, through that hole in the exposed surface of the stile.

The first two distinctions concern the strength of the joint, to resist the tendency of the joint to open up as a result of the twisting stresses, and therefore the use of the pressure transfer channel and rectangular plate, or the use of a pressure transfer channel alone which would provide as much strength as the channel and plate together provide in the device shown by the drawings, will be claimed as patentable improvements in that respect.

The third distinction concerns the strength of the joint to resist the tendency of the rails from sliding on and thereby becoming out of alignment with the ends of the sti es.

The fourth and fifth distinctions concern the beauty and therefore the acceptability of the finished product, inasmuch as together they provide a method of inserting the bolt without having to leave a hole in the exposed surface of the stile large enough through which to insert the bolt head. They also concern the convenience of field assembly, inasmuch as they make it possible for the manufacturer to thread the bolt through the rectangular plate, through the pressure transferring channel, and into the screw race in the rail, leaving it only loose enough so that the rail may be slid up the stile and into position, then the bolt turned with the socket wrench through the wrench access hole to tighten up the joint. This is also a convenience when disassembling the door to replace a broken glass, inasmuch as with this arrangement it is not necessary to remove the bolt completely, but only to loosen it a few turns and slide the rail out of the stile.

The use in this illustration of my invention of a socket head cap screw is to provide an assembly bolt that may be turned with a simple hand tool. Within the scope of of the appended claims, and without departing from the spirit of the invention a bolt or screw that would be turned with a square or oval or other shaped pin, or with a Phillips head screwdriver, could be used. Also a hex head bolt could be used, in which case the wrench access hole 13, FIGURE 4 could be eliminated altogether. However, with the bolt head as high up in the stile as it is shown to be in these drawings, a hex head bolt cannot be tightened with an ordinary wrench. The head of the bolt is so far away from the end of the stile, and the width or inside dimension of the stile is so narrow as to restrict the swing of the end of the wrench to the extent that it will not turn the bolt far enough to get a new hold. It is possible that some type of ratchet wrench with a very fine ratched and a very narrow handle might be developed which would reach in that far and tighten a hex head bolt. Your petitioners search has not revealed the availability of such a device, and therefore he considers it, if it exists at all, to be not a simple hand tool. There is available an air operated ratched wrench which would do the job, but again this could not be considered a simple hand tool available to the mechanic in the field. If such a wrench is developed and distributed to the extent that it would be available to the mechanic in the field, the hole in the exposed surface of the stile could be eliminated, and the arrangement would still fall within the scope of the appended claims.

To further pursue the possibility of changing the assembly bolt to ahex head bolt, it is possible, for certain applications, to build a door on the principle herein described, which would have the screw race in the rails moved closer to the outermost edge, thereby moving the bolt head closer to the end of the stile. This would make it possible to turn a hex head bolt with an ordinary wrench, making it possible to eliminate the wrench access hole. But to make a door which may be used with a variety of the known hanging and closing devices, it is desirable to leave the screw race where it is shown in the drawings. For a door that is going to hang on butt hinges, or on a surface applied offset pivot device, or on an offset pivoted floor closer, the screw race might be moved down to the top of the lower web of the bottom rail, in which case the bolt would be moved closer to the end of the stile, so that it might be turned with an ordinary hand wrench. But in a door which is to be hung on the presently available center hung floor closers, center hung automatic door opening devices, or on the presently available center hung overhead concealed closers, it is necessary to leave the deep well or recess in the bottom of the bottom rails as is shown in FIGURE 3, to receive the bottom arms and pivots furnished with these devices. It is also to be noted that those anms extend out of the bottom rail and over into the area of the stile, therefore on this type application the rectangular plate 5, FIG- URES 2 and 4, and the pressure transferring channel 6, FIGURES 2 and 4, may not be allowed to extend any lower than as they are shown in FIGURE 4. That is, they may not be allowed to extend any lower than the bottom of the lower web of the bottom rail. Therefore in those applications, lowering of the screw race in the bottom rail to the top of the lower web in the bottom rail would necessitate lowering the bolt to the very bottom end of the pressure transferring channel and of the rectangular plate, in turn necessitating drilling the holes in those parts very near the end of them, greatly reducing their elfectiveness.

However, if a door should be manufactured for a limited application which would allow lowering of the screw race to the extent that a hex head bolt could be turned with an ordinary wrench, and the wrench access hole eliminated, this arrangement would not be outside the scope of the appended claims.

Although applicants drawings show a standard socket head cap screw, it would not be outside the scope of the appended claims if a special screw should be used. It is particularly contemplated that an especially thin headed screw such as a button head socket screw, might be used, to afford more room in the stile so as to receive certain panic release mechanisms.

While I have shown but one application of my invention it should be understood that various changes or modi fications may be made and other adaptations conceived within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit of the invention. In particular it is contemplated that although the present application of the invention is to extruded aluminum store front doors, it might be applied to any type door, panel, or closure construction to which it would be advantageous. Any material which could he formed into the shapes required might be used, It is contemplated that the pressure transferring channel and rectangular plate need not be two separate pieces but might be constructed in the form of one channel. Furthermore the shape of the pressure transferring channel need not be exactly a channel but might well be in the shape of a half section of pipe, without departing from the spirit of the invention.

It is further contemplated that the rail locating protrusions on the stile need not be formed from the immediately adjacent wall of the stile member, but might be formed by the application of screws, studs, or pins, the heads or ends of which are left to project from that wall.

It is to be noted that although the present drawings show rail retaining lips 8, FIGURES 2 and 3, on the inner edge of the stile, these lips are not necessary to the function of the invention. The purpose of these lips is to enclose the end of the rail and prevent the rail from twisting in the stile. Although this is a very economical and effective method of preventing the rail from twisting in the stile, it is contemplated that this might be achieved by the addition of two more rail locating protrusions on the stile, which would locate just over the top of the lowermost wall of the bottom rail, making it possible to eliminate the rail retaining lips altogether.

It is to be noted that although the drawings show only the detail of the bottom corner joint, the joint between the stile and the top rail is constructed in a similar fashion, although the overall height of the top rail might be less than the overall height of the bottom rail.

I claim: 1

In a door structure including four separate members arranged into a rectangular framework surrounding a flat sheet, a mechanical corner joint between the square cut end of the horizontal member and the side of the vertical member, the horizontal member being provided with a longitudinally continuous recess to receive the edge of the flat sheet to a depth substantially less than the total height of the horizontal member, and such horizontal member including a longitudinally continuous partial cylinder, the vertical member including a surface which contacts the square cut end of the horizontal member, the outermost edges of said surface being provided with longitudinally continuous protrusions forming between them a recess which contains the square cut end of the horizontal member, and said surface of the vertical member being provided with a longitudinally continuous recess for receiving the edge of the flat sheet to a depth substantially less than the total width of that member, the innermost wall of the recess being provided with a slot which extends from the nearest end of the vertical member a distance slightly longer than the distance from the outermost edge of the horizontal member to the innermost wall of the partial cylinder in the horizontal member, the mechanical joining of the vertical and horizontal members being accomplished by the application of a bolt through a channel member which transfers the pressure created by the bolt from the center of the recess in the vertical member to the outside edges of the vertical member, such bolt passing then through the slot in the vertical member and threading into the longitudinally continuous partial cylinder in the horiznnrai member, and wherein the horizontal member includes a longitudinally continuous horizontal wall, and wherein the surface of the vertical member which contacts the square cut end of the horizontal member is provided with at least one integral rail locating protrusion formed from that wall by punching out a tab from the material of that wall, said tab being located in such a position as to protrude into the horizontal member adjacent the longitudinally continuous horizontal wall of the horizontal 7 8 member when the horizontal member is located in verti- 2,918,708 12/1959 Sharp et a1 189-36 X cal alignment with the end of the vertical member. 3,156,020 11/1964 Horgan 20-19 3,177,533 4/1965 Davis 18946 X References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 5 HARRISON R. MOSELEY, Primary Examiner. 2,611,633 9/1952 Webster 189-36 X KENNETH DOWNEY, Examiner. 2,644,554 7/1953 Katz 189-36 X 

